Bayer shareholders claim 2.2 billion euros from the group for glyphosate litigation

First modification: 01/04/2022 – 13:14

“Tilp, representing some 320 investors, has filed lawsuits against Bayer with the Cologne District Court (West Germany), who seek to recover damages for a total amount of about 2.2 billion euros,” Tilp said in a statement sent to the press.

This is more than double the amount initially released last December by the cabinet.

These shareholders reproach the German group for not having informed them sufficiently about the economic risks generated by the legal process related to glyphosate, after the purchase of Monsanto in 2018.

Now, the court must decide if it can initiate a “model process”, which allows bringing together issues common to several cases in a single trial, as requested by lawyers.

In mid-December, the German courts had opened the way to a shareholder proceeding against Bayer.

The Cologne civil court decided in mid-December “to publish a petition for the opening of a group action” to determine whether Bayer “concealed significant risks from the capital market related to the acquisition of the US group Monsanto,” as stated in a statement.

A “petition for the opening of a group action” before the Justice is an essential stage for the beginning of a “model process” that allows all the issues to be regrouped in a single trial.

Since then, Bayer has faced a barrage of lawsuits in the United States by former users of glyphosate, a herbicide marketed by Monsanto.

In 2015, a WHO department classified it as a “probably carcinogenic” substance, something that its marketer denies.

These complaints caused about half the value of Bayer’s share to be lost on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, a “huge loss” for shareholders, according to Tilp.

“With the lawsuits filed, we have complied with all the formalities to launch a model process,” said Christian Herrmann, a lawyer for Tilp quoted in the press release.

The cabinet expects the opening of the process in “the next few months” and expects a trial in the course of this year.